


travelers, there is no path (the path is made by walking)

by blackkat



Series: HashiObi Drabbles [7]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Warning: Obito, World Trees, blink and you'll miss it crossover, in all his fucked-up glory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 06:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16112759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: The dimensions stretching out around Obito feel like the branches of a tree.





	travelers, there is no path (the path is made by walking)

The dimensions stretching out around Obito feel like the branches of a tree.

Obito hasn’t really ever _thought_ about it, has never contemplated the hows and whys of his power before, but Zetsu is gone and the base is quiet. He’s on his own with nothing to do _but_ think, and that’s a dangerous thing. If Obito's still too long, if he lets himself linger in one place, doubts start to rise. He starts to question things.

Madara made it very, very clear that he wasn’t supposed to question things.

It’s an excuse to explore Kamui, though, to learn more. Kakashi can't develop their power, not when he’s barely able to use the eye to begin with—

( _I_ _shouldn’t rely on him_ , Obito tells himself. _He’s a bastard who killed Rin and he just follows Konoha and—_

A small part of him thinks of Kakashi before a grave, Kakashi before the memorial, thinks of Minato and Kushina dead because of Obito's actions. A small part of him is _screaming_ and Obito can't look at it can't think can't _live with himself_ but it’s going to be okay, he’s going to give everyone a dream and let them all be happy and then what will it matter that he’s a monster?)

—so it falls to Obito to test the Mangekyō, to work out its limits. Madara had told him it was one he’d never witnessed before, entirely unique, so there's no record of its abilities. No manual, Obito thinks, and it sounds like Minato laughing in his head.

(It hurts. It feels like _why didn’t you save me_. It feels like _I hate you_ but maybe it also feels a little like _I regret_.)

It might be because he’s been practicing with his Mokuton, small things, the kinds of Mokuton Zetsu scoffs at. Flowers and trees that don’t stab and vines that don’t strangle. Sweet things, just because he can, and Obito steps from that to Kamui and—

There's bark beneath his feet. A pulse of life beneath his fingers, and Obito sucks in a sharp breath and opens his eye.

A vast tree rises through a galaxy of stars. Its branches stretch out, luminescent, like they're realer than anything else Obito knows, more _present_ , and Obito knows with an instinctive, impossible awareness where each leads. Different worlds, different realms, and some of them are so dark even he cringes from them, but some are _light_.

He looks away from those ones, doesn’t even try to follow the path up to them. That’s not a place for someone like him.

That’s fine. It _is_ , because below him is another branch, another door. It feels grey in Obito's mind, neutral, dark and light balanced. Cold, a little, and there's a shadow on the limb of the tree, a horned god with a grin who looks up at Obito, eyes sharp. It inclines its head to him, then turns and vanishes into the trunk, and Obito thinks, _Death._

Obito thinks, _Rin_.

He’s making a world where Rin wouldn’t have to have died. He’s making a world where children don’t fight and there are no wars and nobody dies with their dreams unfulfilled. There's no possible way he’d even _try_ to bring Rin back into a world where that hasn’t happened yet, but—

There's nothing that says he can't see her in the meantime.

Obito's chest aches, and he swallows. Just a glimpse, he tells himself. He’ll go into Death and find her, just watch her for a moment. Rin was always his best friend, his _only_ friend, and being without her for the last ten years has hurt more than anything. It’s not as if he’s in love with her—that was for Obito as a child, before he grew up, hardened. But he does love her, with the desperate devotion to her memory that will let him change the world for her.

If he sees her, maybe that will shut out the doubts that rise in his mind whenever he stops moving.

Carefully, lightly, Obito drops down through galaxy-bright space to land on the wide limb, far vaster than any Fire Country tree. The trunk in front of him shimmers faintly, a touch of brightness to the wood, and Obito steps up to it, steps _through_ without so much as hesitating.

The world beyond is…normal. A forest, deep and green and heady with old growth, but nothing astounding. Beautiful, but not unearthly. It’s almost comforting, and Obito breathes out, reaches up, rests his fingertips against a trunk to feel the pulse beneath. Strange, half-sideways from what he knows, but still recognizably similar, and he lets out a breath of relief.

“Lovely, aren’t they?” a voice asks.

Obito startles, spins. There's a man behind him, close to the edge of the doorway. Tall and broad and smiling, with a fall of raven-dark hair, and Obito has seen that face carved into unyielding stone but the reality of it is bewilderingly different.

“Shodai-sama,” he says, and the title falls instinctively from his lips despite the curses Madara always used instead. He takes a step back, hesitates—

Hashirama smiles at him, offers a hand. “I see you found the paths,” he says gently. “Does that mean you have Mokuton as well?”

Mokuton, Obito thinks, and he’s too astonished not to take Hashirama’s hand. Not Kamui that carried him here, but _Mokuton_. It makes sense, with that tree so bright and brilliant in his head, leading everywhere, but he hadn’t expected it. Swallows, even as Hashirama pulls him closer, and says without quite meaning to, “I just—I came to see—”

Stops, because he hasn’t said her name aloud in a decade. Can't, even here, even with the thought of seeing her so close.

Hashirama looks at him, expression sliding towards solemnity. “Whoever you're looking for, they're somewhere in this world,” he says gently, like that isn't enough to turn Obito's entire existence on its side. “But…there's a difference between who you want to see and who you _need_ to see.”

The breath rattles in Obito's lungs, hitches, and he tries to wrench his hand away with a sound of fury, but Hashirama doesn’t let him go. Tugs him closer, reaches out, and the warmth of his arms wrapping around Obito is enough of a surprise to make Obito falter. He lets himself be pulled against Hashirama’s chest, _held_ , and is too surprised to protest.

“You look like you're fighting a war in your own head,” Hashirama says, and Obito can't breathe, can't speak. He reaches up, hands like claws finding the back of Hashirama’s shirt, and clutches at him like a pathetic child.

“I killed them,” he says, and there's only two people he could mean. Only two people he _needs_ to see, to speak to. The thought of it is like being crushed all over again, but—

He killed them. He killed his teacher, the woman who might as well have been his sister. He destroyed his village and made everyone suffer and even if the world turns into a dream, that can never, ever be undone.

And then Hashirama says, gently, kindly, “Doors always work both ways, you know.”

Obito goes perfectly still, terrified to even _contemplate_ that.

Gentle fingers slide into his hair, and Hashirama cups the back of his head. His tone is serious, and he says, “Some things can be undone, if you have the will.”

Obito laughs, ragged, rough, and the sound very nearly leaves his throat bloody. “I don’t,” he says, because he only dares to grow flowers where Zetsu will never see, never lets himself think because he might think something wrong. “I don’t, I never have.”

There's a long pause, a slow breath. Hashirama is warm, and he smells like the earth in summer, sweet and kind. “Then let me help you,” Hashirama says. “I haven’t left before, but—I think I can, if I try.”

No hesitation in the offer, no wavering. Assistance, promised so readily, and Obito can't remember the last time he had such a thing. It makes him want to cry, a little, and he presses his forehead to Hashirama’s shoulder.

“I can never make up for what I did,” he confesses, and he shouldn’t, but—something about Hashirama pulls the words right out of his throat.

“Not unless you try,” Hashirama says, humor and heart and honesty all wrapped up together, and he pulls back enough to give Obito a smile.

It feels a little like falling. Feels, maybe, like the heart Obito thought he’d lost finally stirring deep inside his chest where only darkness has lingered for so long. He drags in a ragged breath, grits his teeth, closes his eye.

 _Try_ , he thinks, and it’s a small word, but it’s _vast_.

“All right,” he whispers, thinking of flowers blooming in his hands, deep beneath the earth.


End file.
